File this one under “Oh Bloody Hell, Why Do Dickheads Have To Ruin Absolutely Everything.”
Surf-watching cameras at Sydney’s Freshwater Beach were found to have been hacked so that online streamers (read: voyeuristic wankers) could ogle totally oblivious sunbathers.
Popular live-streaming site SURFit allows users to scope out their favourite spots before heading out. The site also grants users rudimentary control of a camera’s focus on the waves, but cameras were deliberately trained on the beach instead of the surf for some time earlier this month.
A surfer and frequent user of the service anonymously reported to the Manly Daily that whoever controlled the camera on October 10 “was basically panning in and out checking out different girls.” Screenshots obtained by the publication support that claim.
A spokesperson for SURFit told the Manly Daily the system had been hijacked for dodgy purposes, and that at least one of the cameras involved has been replaced with bolstered security features.
Speaking to the paper, Sydney University law professor Barbara McDonald said the offence obviously breaches common decency, but might dodge any specific criminal classification.
“Sometimes these sorts of conduct which slip through the different cracks and end up being a breach of nothing and really it ought to be a breach of something.”
As it stands, the service still offers a myriad of streamable vantage points across Freshwater Beach, Manly, Dee Why, and Narrabeen-Collaroy for punters who aren’t using the service just to be creepy fucks.
